St. Patrick must be rolling over in his grave — and I can say that because I'm part Irish.

Instead of receiving the best of what the U.S. has to offer, Ireland has been receiving the worst of what the U.S. has to offer, specifically in the form of boatloads of blood-tainted money from liberal American billionaires.

The abortion industry is, of course, particularly discomfited by the fact that, according to the United Nations, Ireland, without recourse to abortion, is the safest place in the world for a mother to have a baby. And Irish medical experts have testified that their experience shows abortion is not needed to preserve the lives of mothers — whatever conditions arise during pregnancy.

Little wonder, then, that enormous global pressure is being brought to bear on Ireland right now. However, most people would be surprised to hear that the push to legalise abortion in Ireland is being funded by wealthy Americans: with funding coming from billionaires George Soros and Chuck Feeney, and from multinationals like Microsoft and Goldman Sachs through donations to legal centres supporting Planned Parenthood....

...George Soros, the New York based investor billionaire, gave €100 million to the self-styled rights organisation, Human Rights Watch (HRW), in 2010 — the same year that the outfit visited Ireland to attack that country's ban on abortion....

How sad that certain people with considerable wealth choose to fund such anti-life and anti-family campaigns, all the while calling it philanthropy.

Also making "Irish" headlines:

A University of Notre Dame philosophy professor has declared, via the website of The New York Times, that the immorality of contraception "is no longer a teaching of the Catholic Church." Thus, he seems to have no problem with the Obama administration's unjust contraception mandate (which, by the way, is reportedly opposed by a majority of Americans).

Gary Gutting, Endowed Chair in Philosophy, argued that the will of many Catholics who choose to use contraceptives is paramount to the teaching of the bishops.... Gutting's argument would seem to have Jesus telling Peter, 'upon this poll I will build my Church.'

In his opinion piece, Gutting repeats the mainstream media's claim that 150 percent of Catholic women use contraception at some point in their lifetimes. Well, OK, the claim is actually 98 percent, but since we're using "Planned Parenthood-Obama math," who really cares whether it's 98 percent or 150 percent?

(I asked Brian Clowes, Ph.D., director of research for Human Life International, to comment on the "98 percent" claim. Dr. Clowes responded that "almost everyone ignores the Church's teachings in this area. And they do reap the whirlwind. Natural Family Planning users have a 3 to 6 percent divorce rate; everyone else is at about 50 percent. It is all about communication.

("The Church is a voluntary, non-democratic association of people united for a common purpose, like a baseball team, a legal or medical team, or a military unit. You give up some of your rights voluntarily in order to help the team achieve the goal — in this case, salvation of the souls of its members ... If you don't like it, get the hell out. The Methodists, the Unitarians, the Presbyterians, the UCCs — lots of churches out there will welcome you with open arms.")

There have been many excellent and notable Catholics educated at Notre Dame. It's too bad the university itself has essentially been transformed into the Church of Barack Obama.

Matt C. Abbott

Matt C. Abbott is a Catholic commentator with a Bachelor of Arts degree in communication, media and theatre from Northeastern Illinois University. He also has an Associate in Applied Science degree in business management from Triton College. He's been interviewed on MSNBC, Bill Martinez Live, WOSU Radio in Ohio, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's 'Unsolved' podcast, WLS-TV (ABC) in Chicago, WMTV (NBC) and WISC-TV (CBS) in Madison, Wis., and has been quoted in The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune. He can be reached at mattcabbott@<NOSPAM>gmail.com.

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